Uninvited (Etudes in C# Book 3)

by Jamie Wyman

  Marius’s smile was a lupine promise. “Or worse. Did I just set a trap for her?”

  I imagined Eris sitting in her office—or whatever dank pit the bitch called home—and fuming because her Spidey-sense was atingle. I hoped it burned. Knowing that right at this moment she might be squirming or tugging at her own mousy hair with frustration made me happier than I’d been since I’d died.

  Looping my arm around his, I pressed up to Marius, unable to suppress the gleeful laugh. “Oh, I love this. Can we keep fucking with Eris while we’re here?”

  “All in good time,” he said warmly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “The Distance”

  As it turned out, we’d arrived on the volcanic island of Thira—now commonly called Santorini—sometime around three in the morning. When we strolled into the lobby, a very groggy-looking concierge greeted us in Greek. Without missing a beat, Marius responded in kind and a melodic conversation began. The concierge’s fingers flew over the computer keyboard. A couple of smacks on the space bar and he turned his dark eyes up to Marius, his expression contrite.

  “I have rabid badgers in my pants,” he said.

  Well, okay, that’s not what he said. Probably. I have no clue what Marius and this guy were saying to each other. It sounded pretty, though, and the concierge seemed friendly enough as he lifted his hands in the international gesture of, There’s nothing I can do.

  Marius flashed his signature smirk and held up a finger, urging the young man to hold on a moment. My satyr fished through his bag and came up with a black credit card. He slid it over the counter, and the concierge’s eyes widened. Staring at Marius as if he’d just found himself standing in the presence of royalty, the concierge gaped, his mouth working like that of a drowning fish.

  The young man’s eyes darted between me and Mal as his fingers beat out a furious rhythm on the keyboard. When the computer answered him, the clerk reported his findings to Marius. He nodded, and the clerk swiped the credit card.

  “Care to enlighten the savages?” I asked.

  Marius kept his cool, aloof demeanor as he turned to me. “I asked them for three rooms, but it turns out they have only two left. Mal and I will share one. You can have the other.”

  I shrank a little, and even as I did, I yelled at myself. I didn’t want to share a room with Marius, did I? Even if I did, no good could come of it. Stupid Cat.

  I bobbed my head and stepped back, letting Marius finish up. Soon, the concierge handed Marius two key cards. Indicating one of them, he pointed down the slope to the left—back the way we’d come. Marius asked a question, and when he approved of the answer, he put the key card into his pocket. My satyr gestured to me with the other key and said something to the clerk.

  “Of course,” the concierge said in accented English. “I’d be happy to show your lady friend to the suite.”

  “Thank you,” Marius said. He turned to me and pressed the plastic key card into my hand. “Go get settled in. Mal and I are in villa number three. If you need anything, Andreas here will take care of it. I’ll be by in a bit, all right?”

  I glanced at the desk clerk. He stood a few feet away, his hands clasped at his waist. He gave me a slight bow and an unassuming smile. I nodded to Marius. “All right.”

  “Excellent.” Marius brushed a lock behind my ear and placed a kiss on my temple. His fingers lingered a moment over my hair before he stepped away. “Come on, Mal. We’re this way.”

  Mal eyed us, his thick brows shoved together with consternation. Rather than pick whatever fight was brewing in his mind, Mal shrugged and followed his brother out into the warm predawn. As I watched them leave, my stomach twisted. I didn’t want Marius out of my sight. What if something happened to him? What if Eris showed up and I wasn’t there?

  The concierge cleared his throat, jarring me back to the moment in a world where people didn’t know about satyrs being real or needing to run from vengeful goddesses.

  “This way, Miss,” Andreas said with a subdued wave of his hand.

  Andreas led me outside, around a winding path, and up a tight stone staircase. Soft amber lights dotted the ground, their glow bouncing off the white walls like torchlight. This resort, I soon found, was not like anything in Vegas. I was used to layer upon layer of identical rooms reaching in a tower to the sky. Here, though, the suites climbed the slope of the volcano in a hodgepodge arrangement. Where the casinos on the Strip kept everything under one roof, the resort basked beneath the open dome of the night. Each suite was its own tiny dwelling. Looking around, I noticed a balcony with a private, jewel-bright pool. To my left was a terrace with simple furniture and umbrellas, which were folded for the night. Even at this hour, lights burned on the patios and cobbled walkways.

  Andreas opened a small, thigh-high gate and gestured me through. “Your suite, Miss.”

  I nodded gratefully and took the few remaining steps to the door. Andreas’s soft footfalls receded into the darkness as he returned to his post.

  I let myself in, throwing the security lock behind me. When I switched on the light, my breath caught in my chest.

  The room was the lovechild of a spa retreat and a honeymoon suite. An oval-shaped desk sat to one side of the room. Above it was a flat-screen television. Across the stone floor was a squat plush chair. Unlike the furnishings in Vegas, this actually looked comfortable. The queen-size bed—an inviting square of fluffy white pillows and pristine coverlets—stood in its own alcove behind a sage-green curtain drawn to one side.

  The crowning glory of the suite, however, lay beyond the sliding door. Sheer curtains brushed past me in the light, sea-scented breeze as I stepped out onto my private patio. A chaise lounge with a mountain of pillows upon it reclined a few feet away from my private Jacuzzi. Its gin-clear water sparkled and beckoned me to sink in and rest my weary soul.

  Glancing up, I took in the view. Santorini lay within a volcanic crater, and we were on the inside of the bowl. Other resorts climbed the slope of the crater. And down below it all, far beneath the ocean surface, the volcano slept. Rather than curl up on the chaise and glut myself on the spectacular scenery, I hitched my duffel bag on my shoulder and took it into the bedroom where I started unpacking. I was almost finished when a knock came on my door.

  “Coming,” I called.

  When I opened the door, Marius stood smiling down at me. “All settled?”

  “Just about.” I flopped my arm as an invitation that he should come in.

  Hands in his pockets, he turned in a circle and took in the room. “Quaint little retreat,” he said. “Surprised you’re not out there partaking of the hot tub.”

  I sighed and swept back to the bed “Didn’t think to pack a bathing suit.”

  “Shame you’d let that stop you,” he said, his voice giving an appreciative purr.

  I snorted. “Yeah, right. Not out there for the whole island to see.” With the slam of a drawer, I stowed the last of my things in the bureau. Finally alone with Marius again, I had a million questions, but all the big ones got stuck in my throat.

  “So,” my voice cracked, “who are we meeting? Please tell me it’s not another family reunion.”

  With a sidelong smile, he sauntered out to the balcony. The Mediterranean breeze tossed his hair from his face. He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. “Not family. Well, not by blood, anyway. We had good times together, though. Damn, it seems like so long ago…”

  “Please tell me you’re not banking your life on this guy’s sense of nostalgia.”

  “Of course not.” Marius’s laughter was a lazy melody. Low and easy, unforced. Honest. “No, Hephaestus knows all too well what it’s like to be an outsider without a tribe.”

  “That’s great, but can we trust that Heph— Wait.” I waved at the air, trying to make sense of what I’d just heard.

  Hephaestus, God of the Forge of Olympus?

  The myths said he was gruff, lame, and quick to anger. So great was his mythical wrath, that h
is tantrums rumbled up from his volcanic demesne in the form of catastrophic eruptions. And we were going to meet up with him and ask a favor?

  Despite run-ins with gods, angels, and princes of Hell, the prospect scared the shit out of me. I gulped down my fear. “Hephaestus? The god? We’re meeting Hephaestus?”

  Marius nodded. “Already sent him my calling card, so to speak. Just waiting for him to respond.”

  I stomped to his side, suddenly very afraid that we’d made a huge, suicidal mistake. “Are you crazy? You heard the Muse! She said the lords of Olympus sent that love note. You know that part about your skin hanging from the halls of Hades? How can you want to visit one of them?”

  “Heph has no love for most of his brethren,” Marius said, casually adding, “especially after he and Aphrodite split up. I am confident that he had nothing to do with that little message.”

  “And you know how to find him?”

  The satyr gave me a capricious smile and turned his gaze out to the ocean. “That’s his home. Deep beneath the waves in the belly of the crater.”

  “And you’re sure we’re safe here? So close to him, right in plain sight of a shit ton of people who want you dead?”

  “Eris will know we’re here, but she’ll be scrambling to suss out Heph’s motives, as well as mine. If I’m wrong about him, if Hephaestus calls down judgment, I need you to take Malcolm and use the fob.”

  “And just leave you?”

  “If I’ve lost my ally in Hephaestus, there will be nothing to stop Zeus from taking me straight to Hades.”

  Marius kept his gaze fixed on the sea. Leaning forward, he rested his forearms on the patio wall. His shoulders slouched, and his face relaxed. He closed his eyes and took in the scent of the Mediterranean, seeming to savor it.

  Starlight painted bluish streaks in his lush hair as he beamed at the moon, and for the first time since he showed up at my apartment, Marius looked truly carefree.

  Frustrated, I swatted at his arm. “How the hell can you be so calm?”

  “This is my home,” he answered, awe in his voice. Sparing me a glance, he added, “Oh, sure, I was born near Glastonbury, but I never felt like I belonged there. I needed to see more. Do more. Know more. I felt like I was too young to put down roots like Father had.”

  “Or like Mal?”

  He bobbed one shoulder in a half shrug. “Mal—for all his foibles—lives a decent life, I suppose. It’s simple. He needn’t question things around him or work too hard for his pleasures. And it’s enough for him.”

  “Whereas you’re insatiable.” I smiled.

  He gave a light laugh. “In every possible way.”

  I sidled up beside him so we stood arm to arm. His body was a warm, golden hum against me. “So you came here?”

  “Well, not at first. I traveled the Continent for a bit. France, Spain. Spent a fair amount of time in Italy. When I came to Greece, though…” Marius’s eyes went out of focus as he searched for words. “Before I’d been so restless, so frenzied. But here… For the first time in my life I felt…calm.”

  My belly quivered. I knew what he meant. I knew exactly how he felt. Had been wrestling with that same awkwardness since I woke up at YmFy earlier that day.

  “It’s like there’s all this background noise in life,” I said. “Fear and to-do lists, all the what-ifs and buts. Right? And then there’s this one perfect place where it all just stops.”

  Marius’s stare met mine with an electric snap that shot through my core. “There’s silence.”

  “Peace.”

  “Yes,” he said, voice little more than a soft breath between us.

  “I know what that’s like,” I said.

  “Do you? Where does your soul feel at peace, Catherine?”

  Despite the fact that my guts were fluttering with nerves, I smiled. Maybe I could explain what it had been like to die, to wake up safe in his arms. Maybe I could confess that my Fortress of Solitude couldn’t be found on a map but in another person.

  As I opened my mouth to tell him, fear clamped on my stomach and all that came out was a weak cough that quickly morphed into nervous laughter. “YmFy.” The half-truth oozed out of me easy as any lie I’d ever told. “I found it at YmFy.”

  The sparkle of anticipation drained out of his eyes. “Ah.” He stood upright and turned his gaze back to the ocean. As I watched, he seemed to slip back into his glamour. Not the spell that masked his satyr heritage. No, his hardened, aloof exterior. For a moment I’d been granted access to the soft, real Marius.

  I wanted to reach past that barrier, to peer into him a little longer. “Where’s yours? I mean, is it just Greece, or is there a specific place?”

  “There is a place,” he murmured to the sea. “It’s on the mainland in Arcadia.”

  “Tell me about it?”

  As he stared into the night, Marius’s voice took on a reverent tone I’d rarely heard from him. “The Temple of Pan is in the woods there. Its door is carved into a cliff side. Not too far downslope, a small tributary of the Neda River pools to form a lagoon. For a long time the only ones who knew about it were the satyrs and nymphs. We’d play our pipes and the dryads would dance.

  “The water,” he continued, “is cool and crystal clear. Sweet on the tongue. In some ways it was better than wine.”

  “Wow,” I said, genuinely impressed. “Water better than wine? To you?”

  “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Go on.”

  “Sometimes I’d go there alone. The nymphs would have been off, other satyrs lazing in their homes or the fields. Very rarely would I get the place all to myself, but when I did, Catherine, it was like…something holy. Sacred. The wind would whisper through the trees, shaking blossoms down into the water, and the flower petals would ride the tiny waves created by the waterfall.

  “And there used to be this boulder covered in moss. I’d sit upon it and play my pipes. It was in those moments when the questions stopped. Those noises, as you say, vanished. I knew peace.”

  His face was drawn with longing. He pined for this pool in the woods, yes, but I saw a sadness in his eyes that wished for more. Perhaps the simplicity of that time long ago when the world was nothing more than music, sex, and a serene lagoon.

  “Can we go there?” I asked.

  He winced ever so slightly. “As much as I would like to visit Grandfather’s temple—pay my respects, as it were—and play a few notes by the waterfall, I don’t think it would be wise.”

  “Why?”

  He blew out a breath. “The Sileni.”

  Those four syllables triggered something in my memory, and my intestines pitched.

  The scent of brimstone, a muffled ringing in my ears. Fear, acrid and bitter in my mouth. Llyr’s eyes flashing a warning. “Take the boys and run with them. Run home. Then find the Sileni. It’s very important that you remember this name.”

  As if I were clawing my way back up from the abyss of Hell itself, I gripped the balcony wall and willed myself back into the moment, to the cool Grecian night. Like a relic of my trip, a burning souvenir, the word came out of my mouth in a hoarse whisper.

  “Sileni.”

  Tell Marius, Llyr had said.

  I’d opened my mouth to do just that when Marius growled, “Murderers.”

  “What?”

  He brooded there, smoldering, his jaw tightening with anger. Before he could go on, there was a knock on my door.

  Mal’s voice was muffled. “Oi!”

  Marius gave me a wan, half-assed smile and said, “Never mind.” He pushed away from the balcony wall and stalked across the room to let his brother in.

  “Mal, I told you I’d be back in a bit,” he said as he whipped open the door.

  The younger satyr stood there looking very much like a contrite puppy. “I know, and I’d be in me own bed dreamin’ of loose women and tight clothes, but he said if I didn’t give y’ this, he’d have me hide. And I’ve had just about enough of getting me face punched in s
o I didn’t want to wait for you.”

  “Who said what now?” I asked.

  “Big bloke. Dark. Didn’t catch his name but he gave me this. Said Marius would know what it meant.”

  Mal held up a small metallic sphere no bigger than a billiard ball. Its surface gleamed, casting back warped reflections of the room. Something about it called to me, plucked the strings of my strange senses.

  I took a step forward, reached out to stroke the smooth silver. “What is it?”

  Marius stilled me with a gesture of his hand. He plucked the ball from Mal’s hands and examined it. “That was fast,” he whispered.

  His breath fogged the nearest side of the orb, and the enigmatic thing melted. A small flame erupted above Marius’s fingers with the scent of ash and molten metal. He jerked away, and as he did, I thought I saw a grinning face within the fire. A whoosh of air and the fireball snuffed itself out. The smoke dissipating in thin wisps and tendrils, and the room filled with a man’s low, jovial laughter.

  Mal’s eyes were wide as saucers. “Can’t a bloke go five minutes without all your hocus pocus bullshit? I’m done. I’m going back to me room where I can drink m’self senseless.”

  “Coward,” Marius called as the door slammed shut behind Malcolm.

  “And that was…?” I prodded.

  Marius dusted his hands over his jeans. “That was an invitation. Up for visiting the Forge?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Long Time”

  When someone asks you if you’re up for meeting a god, you say…well, you should probably say no, because nothing good ever comes of that. Me, though? That ship had long since sailed.

  Marius and I walked down to the beach. The sand, dimpled by our footsteps, shone silver beneath the light of the moon. The night was still, eerily quiet save for the peaceful respiration of the tide and the water lapping gently at our feet.

  “Where are you, old friend?” he mumbled to himself, eyes casting out to the open water.

  “Playing hide-and-go-seek, Marius?” a voice asked from behind us.